An Indiana Girl/Chapter 1
All along the main street, from the blacksmith's shop to the hotel, three blocks away, the tiny stores were closed, their doors locked, and each slumbered in a splendid moonlight that bore more gently because this was the night in a day of rest. The lovely light carried a holy softness, solemn and inspiring, that recalled other days of goodness in a visionary way, as lovely things only half real, while the vigor of an almost born strife—a new day of work and effort—seemed but one heart-beat away, and it was easy imagining the soft light as being the forerunner of that day.
Meeting had let out half an hour ago. The street had been a busy hum of babble and good cheer, in gossip and good-nights; then the groups dissolved over flagstone byewalks, and the night again became silent and serene. But, by virtue of the demands made upon it, Orrig's drug-store remained unclosed, and two small lamps extended an invitation to belated ones to join the Sunday night meeting of recreative humor now in session there.
"Oh, ho! no. Don't get me to give in my mite," said Landy, blusteringly. "I'm clearin' out o' here soon's I get done up to ——," and he jerked his thumb in the general direction of his employer's farm with an air of secrecy that each of his dozen listeners observed with befitting nods of approval and regard.
"Well, I ain't sayin' anythin' one way or other," remarked Orrig, as he finished his work for the night. After kicking the cellar door into place, and locking it, he straightened himself with a grunt and proceeded: "But it 'pears to me that they's been more pews'n we need here lately, an' afore we goes to buildin' a bigger meetin' house, gospel or somethin's got to strike the old one harder'n it has yit."
"Gospel don't get in nowhere less'n it's brought," said John Carey, significantly, but hung his head in the pause. Each man knew the thought uppermost in the mind of his neighbor, and each sullenly held his own counsel until Landy exploded in corroboration.
"As I say, it ain't my party, because I am soon gettin' away, but John, he's right. It takes more'n a fine house to make men upset in their head over religion. You got to have a exhorter or somethin' to come up against, an' that's what you ain't got."
Again there was a pause, but no one seemed willing to carry further the line of talk, though the unanimity of thought was obvious, and Snellins, who sat against the counter in the iron saddle of a sulky plow which had been brought in for repairs, became embarrassed by the gravity of things, and, as much in self-consciousness as from a sense of duty, said meekly: "The parson's young, men; remember he ain't much more'n a boy."
"Young! young? you say," shouted Landy, when the seat brace slipped from under Snellins, letting him to the floor, and the group laughed uproariously at his discomfiture. Arising more demure than ever, and rearranging the saddle with unusual care and attention, he asked:
"Well, ain't he?" The smiles were general. "An' that's why I'm his friend," he ended, feebly.
"I guess he ain't much your'n," Landy replied, tauntingly.
"Why not?" he asked, much pained.
"Now look here, Snell," Landy began, "it ain't fer you to know everything; you're too smart an' bright already, an' if you got anythin' more into your head it would crack."
"Mebbe he's got one idee too many now," said Orrig, with assumed seriousness, which was held by everyone until he started the laugh himself, when the witticism received full recognition.
"But tell me why he ain't," persisted Snellins.
"Well," said Landy, winking largely and screwing up the corner of his mouth, "you see, it's this way. I heard some things that you ain't heard mebbe. You didn't know that they's been some letter-writin' goin' on between the parson an' the gov'ment, now did y'? An' y' didn't know that that writin' was mostly about you, did y'? Well, it wuz!"
"Me?" Snellins replied, startedly.
"Yes, you! They wanted to know where you wuz."
"Not where I wuz," he mumbled, as he revolved the idea in his poor mind.
"That's what I said," continued Landy, "an' they're goin' to send somebody here to see you," he ended with forceful emphasis.
"Mebbe," said Carey, after time enough had been given for Landy's last remark to sink in, "mebbe it's about what you been adoin' while you was away last summer that th' gov'ment offercer is comin' fer y'."
Snellin's face took on an unexpected look of understanding at this remark. It seemed to awaken a clear, live thought in his bewildered mind, and he stared at the speaker in questioning fear.
"Let him alone now," said Orrig, with a sympathetic smile, as his better nature responded to the weaker man's helplessness. "Come on, clear out—everybody!" he continued, with a laugh. "I've got to close up."
"Gov'ment officers!" said someone, in a startling whisper, as the group broke up just outside the door, and they all chuckled as they bid "Poor Snell" goodnight.
Disregarding the two short stretches of sidewalk that bordered the street, Snellins stepped out into the road, facing toward the east. The light fell upon his back and cast a short shadow before him that he saw without observing, and, as it moved along with jerky motion, he tried to uproot the doubt of the parson's friendship, which grieved him sorely. Times without number a smile spread over his face only to be driven off by a doubt insubordinate to his heart's good inclinations.
"No, no! Not the parson," he murmured, in a tone that wheedled himself, and smiled under the influence of his own reassurance. "But smart men has been deceived before my time," he continued, after an interval of jumbled reasoning, his head repeating its dubious twitching with each utterance of this sentence, and the sense of self-preservation, adding a weight to his slowly yielding assurance, drew that reasoning down irresistibly and left him finally without hope or combative energy.
The wound so fresh, at the thought of the parson's betrayal, would, in other times, have served him for a week's sorrowing, but now he could not cling to it; the childish effort to nurse the pain and hold it at his heart was fruitless, for the fear that followed close upon the betrayal chilled his every consciousness and left him, body and soul, unalive to the weight of sorrow or the pain of throbbing self-pity. Yet his mind clung with tenacity to the thought. It was a barrier to other things that were creeping in upon him, and he transplanted the rambling pity to those who were nearest to him, unconsciously hoping thus to ward off the impending danger.
"I knew it. They told me; sure they told me," he said. "An' Miss Virgie! what will she say?" he asked, as his troubled mind ran from cause to effect. "To-morrow they said—was it to-morrow—or wasn't it? Yes, it is to-morrow. Poor Miss Virgie; and I am bringing the shame!"
He trudged along the imperfect road, up the hills and down again, with an even stride that took no note of the changes. His head hung forward in deep dejection as his mind grew blank and inoperative under the spell of self-shaming. Then he stepped suddenly across the border line of moonlight into the purple shadow of a stretch of sycamores, and the change awakened him. Lifting his face heavenward, the sky's light shone on his eyes, and a quick resolve flashed back, glistening for the instant with wild activity on their surfaces.
"He will not find me!" he said. Then again, "He will not find me!" And still again, until the resolve wore itself into the beating of his quickened steps as he hurried on. Another mile in the increasing darkness and the resolution gave way to the counting of his measured pace, the rhythm gradually drawing him down again to the pity of it all, and his heart would occasionally interject, "Poor Virgie!"
"One, two, three!" he counted, with feverish application, when "Poor Virgie" thrust itself into the calculation. "Twenty-five, twenty-six" . . . and . . . Ah! he held the distraction away this time. "Thirty, thirty-one. Poor Virgie, poor Virgie!" he repeated. The loss of self-will was maddening; he became confused, gave up in despair, but began again inadvertently, and then (wonder of wonders!) found himself fighting against the unconquerable rhythm that he had so recently wooed.
The road was to be wooded now the balance of his journey. On each side the trees sprung up with majestic solemnity, and, as he fought against the ringing sway of his footsteps, a vague consciousness such as he had never known took hold upon him. It was a consciousness of the awful things of night, and, as the trees took up the swing that was carrying him along, his eyes glued themselves with frantic fascination upon the caravan. The blackness that stood as a block, fitting in snugly with the border lines of trees, held him so closely that his every motion swung the whole, and his forward strides seemed to yield no resultant progress. A fleecy cloud moved over his head from behind and gave the panorama a backward-sliding appearance as he watched it hanging seemingly stationary, while he and his surroundings slipped away and away toward the town from which he had just come. He felt as if he were suspended in a moving mass, and in despair ceased his efforts. Then the terror of inactivity froze his heart, and he could have screamed because of his helplessness. The cloud moved on and dissolved with other clouds. It was a respite in which his mind gained new life, but it was the life that aided terror. These ominous words, "the officers," recurred to him with an inrush of dread that surrounds unknown things, and, as the delusion above his head began again, he felt himself drawn backward to vivid impossibilities.
"The officers," he repeated, as he watched the clouds from under his brows, momentarily expecting to be thrown further backward into the talons of some dreadful terror-conceived, undefined situation. His arms hung loose at his sides as he stood resignedly motionless. Suddenly his face twitched, his right hand jerked, palm outward, as if in a gesture to support an action of the brain. His head instantly lifted and his seeing-less eyes held the light of a lowering heaven that feebly penetrated into the black tunnel of trees. Slowly and low he laughed at first, then horribly, with growing emphasis and increasing staccato; but the fear was gone. Not a trace of that remained, and, as the strong voice assumed its full force, the echoes rung back a wild, mad laugh that wakened the sleeping forest things to a confused unusualness.
Twice—thrice was the apex of his strengthful laughing reached before he came to a much lessened chuckling, and then the phrase of a much expressed sympathy came back from his shattered mind. "Poor Snell!" he said, and laughed uproariously. The words seemed to please him. They were all that were familiar now—all that he could remember, and he repeated them unceasingly. Turning, at last, he retraced his steps. Back toward the town he went, faster and faster, ever increasing in speed until he ran with all the ferocity and energy that had impelled his laughter.
Where the roads branch he fell, and lay upon his face while he panted and regained his breath. Finally, sitting upright, the mile-post caught his eyes, and, after contemplating it with a bewildered look, he gradually grew to smile, and nodded, not in recognition, but in a sense of companionship. He raised his hands and looked at them seriously—wonderingly. Their cuts and bruises excited his pity, and he said, "Poor Snell!" though he seemed to know no pain, and, done with this, he arose and tottered away toward the river, just at the edge of town. He made his way through the scrub oaks, unmoored a boat, pushed out into the muddy stream and floated away, still contemplating his bleeding hands and quoting, "Poor Snell!"
Ah, the pity of a man! Think of it—a man gone mad!